Polish PM might be stretching it a bit about mine in Turów
23:23
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assured on the night of Monday to Tuesday that he had reached an agreement in Brussels.
"Considering the tightening of cross-border cooperation with the Czech Republic, it seems that we are already very close to an agreement. As a result of this agreement, the Czech Republic agreed to withdraw its application to the CJEU," he said.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, however, strongly denied that there was a decision to withdraw the complaint.
"I am glad that after many years of negotiations, Poland recognized that mining in the Turów mine is harmful to the environment, but the problem has not yet been resolved. Experts are negotiating an intergovernmental agreement at the level of prime ministers, which includes compensation for communes threatened by mining. ensure the availability of drinking water for tens of thousands of our citizens," Babiš wrote on Twitter.
According to the website Seznam Zprávy, in Brussels, the Czech prime minister also stated that during the European Council summit he did not talk to Mateusz Morawiecki about the mine.
"I didn't promise anything to Prime Minister Morawiecki. I didn't even want to talk about Turów. The Prime Minister insisted on it, and I just said that it would be assessed by Czech experts," Babiš said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Polish government claims that "there has been a misunderstanding in the media."
The state-owned company PGE wants to expand the lignite open pit and extend the expiring mining license until 2044. The application for an environmental decision for this investment has already been positively considered by the regional director of environmental protection in Wrocław, although his decision has been appealed. The Czech Republic emphasizes that the Turów border mine takes away their water and pollutes the air, and EU law was violated in the process of issuing environmental decisions. The European Commission has already agreed with some of the allegations. That is why southern neighbors decided to apply to the Court of Justice of the EU. This tribunal on Friday ordered the operation of the mine to be stopped.
